In the Office Communications Server installation folder or CD, run Setup.exe to start the deployment tool.

Select one of the following:

• For Standard Edition, click Deploy Standard Edition Server.
  
• For Enterprise Edition, click Deploy Enterprise Pool in a Consolidated Topology or Deploy Enterprise Pool in an Expanded Topology.
  

Click Prepare Active Directory.

At Prep Forest, click Run.

On the Welcome to the Forest Preparation Wizard page, click Next.

On the Select Location to Store Global Settings page, select where you want to store global settings for your Office Communications Server deployment. Choose one of the following:

• To store settings in the domain partition of the root domain, click System container in the root domain (recommended).
  
• To store settings in the configuration partition of the root domain, click Configuration partition.
  

  Note:
  If connectivity to the root domain is unreliable, select Configuration partition because activation of server roles requires access to the root domain (where the global settings are stored). Access to the root domain is also necessary for the server to function properly, unless you select Configuration partition.

On the Location of Universal Groups page, under Domain, select the domain where you want to create the groups used by Office Communications Server, and then click Next.

On the SIP domain used for default routing page, select the SIP domain that you want to use for default routing. The default SIP domain is used to construct server SIP URI, which in the simplest form is [ServerFQDN]@[DefaultSIPDomainFQDN].

In new deployments, root domain is always proposed as the default SIP domain. For existing deployments, if no default SIP domain exists, all existing SIP domains appear as possible options and the wizard selects one domain randomly as the default routing domain. If a default SIP domain already exists, the wizard populates the list with all existing SIP domains and selects that default SIP domain. In all above cases, you can always type in a new domain FQDN for the default SIP domain or use the list to select another existing domain as the default SIP domain.

On the Ready to Prepare Forest page, review your current settings before clicking Next.

On the Forest Preparation Wizard has Completed page, click View Log. Under the Action column, expand Forest Prep. Look for <Success> Execution Result at the end of each task to verify Prep Forest completed successfully. Close the log when you finish.

Click Finish.

Wait for Active Directory replication to complete, or force replication to all domain controllers listed in the Active Directory Sites and Services snap-in for the forest root domain controller, before running Prep Domain.